Chapter VI: Peter the Great (6)

Clearly recognising that the Russian people must pass through a hard school, Peter did not hesitate to subject it to the painful, humiliating position of a pupil; but at the same time he succeeded in balancing the disadvantages of such a position by glory and greatness: in converting it into an active one, he succeeded both in creating the political importance of Russia and the means for its maintenance. A difficult problem presented itself to Peter; for the education of the Russian people it was necessary to call in foreign instructors, directors who naturally endeavoured to subject their pupils to their influence, to set themselves above them; but this humiliated the pupils, of whom Peter wished to make masters as soon as possible. He did not give way to the temptation, did not accept proposals to carry the work to a speedy success with the aid of learned foreigners; he desired that his own Russian subjects should pass through an active, practical school, even though it might occasion great losses and be accompanied by great discomforts. We have seen how he hastened to rid himself of a foreign field-marshal, how he put Russians in all the highest positions and foreigners only in secondary ones; and we have also seen how he was rewarded for his faith in his people and his devotion to it.

It was with the same uncommon caution, with the skill required for remaining within due bounds that Peter solved the difficult problem of church reform. He destroyed unipersonal government and replaced it by the collegiate or council system, which fully corresponded with the spirit of the eastern church; we have seen that one of Peter’s chief cares was to raise the Russian clergy by means of education; in spite of his strong and comprehensible aversion to monasticism he did not abolish this institution as did Henry VIII of England--he only tried to give it a greater activity corresponding to its character.

From whatever point of view we study the epoch of reforms, we must fall into wonderment both at the mental and physical powers of Peter. Powers are developed by their exercise, and we do not know of any historical worker whose sphere of activity was so vast. Born with an unusually wide-awake intellect, Peter cultivated this quickness of perception to the highest degree. From his youth he listened and looked to everything himself, was not guided or restricted by anyone, but was excited and aroused by the state of society, already then on the threshold of changes and hesitating between two directions, agitated by the question of the old and new, when by the side of ancient Moscow the advance guard of the west, the German suburb, was already in view. Peter’s nature was cast in the old Russian heroic mould, he loved breadth and scope; this explains the fact that besides his conscious attraction for the sea he had also an unconscious attraction for it: the heroes of ancient Russia yearned for the wide steppes--the new hero yearned after the broad ocean; places shut in by mountains were displeasing and wearisome to him. Thus he complained to his wife of the situation of Karlsbad: “This place is so merry that it might almost be called an honorable prison, for it is so squeezed in between mountains that the sun can hardly be seen.” In another letter he calls Karlsbad a hole in the ground.

To the powers of a hero of ancient times corresponded passions not moderated by any regular, skilful education. We are aware to what lengths the unbridled passions of a vigorous man could be carried in ancient Russian society, unrestrained as it was by due bounds: how then could such a society put a check upon the passions of a man who stood at the very summit of power? But an observant contemporary woman has very justly declared with regard to Peter that he was both a very good and a very bad man. Without denying or diminishing the dark side of Peter the Great’s character, let us not forget the brighter side, which outweighed the dark and was able to attach people so strongly to him. If his wrath burst forth at times so terribly against those whom he regarded as the enemies of the country and of the general welfare, yet he attached to himself strongly, and was strongly attached to persons of opposite tendencies.

An unusual greatness, joined to the recognition of the insignificance of mere human intellect, a stern insistence on the fulfilment of duties, a stern demand for truth, the capacity of listening to the harshest objections, an extraordinary simplicity, sociability, and kind heartedness--all these qualities powerfully attached to Peter the best of the men who had occasion to come in contact with him; and it is therefore easy to understand the impression produced upon them by the news of the death of the great emperor. Nepluev writes as follows: “In the month of February, of the year 1725, I received the lamentable news that the father of the country, the emperor Peter I had departed this life. I watered this paper with my tears, both out of duty to my sovereign and in remembrance of his many kindnesses and favours to me; verily I do not lie when I say that I was unconscious for more than twenty-four hours, for it would have been sinful for me to have been otherwise. This monarch brought our country into equality with others; he taught us to know that we, too, are men; in a word, whatever you look upon in Russia was all begun by him, and whatever will be done in future will be drawn from the same source; as to me personally, above what I have already written, the sovereign was a good and merciful father. May the Lord grant to his soul, which laboured so greatly for the common good, rest with the righteous!”

Another person who was in close contact with Peter (Nartov) says: “If it should ever happen to a philosopher to look through the archives of Peter’s secret acts, he would shudder with horror at what was done against the monarch. We who were the servants of that great sovereign sigh and shed tears, when we sometimes hear reproaches against the hard-heartedness and cruelty which were not in reality to be met with in him. If many knew what he endured and by what sorrows he was cut to the heart, if they knew how indulgent he was to the weaknesses of humanity and how he forgave crimes that did not deserve mercy they would be amazed. And although Peter the Great is no longer with us, yet his spirit lives in our souls, and we, who had the felicity of being near this monarch, shall die faithful to him, and the ardent love we had for our earthly god will be buried together with us. We are not afraid to proclaim the deeds of our father, in order that a noble fearlessness and truth shall be learned from them.”[i]

KOSTOMAROV’S ESTIMATE OF PETER

As an historical character Peter presents an original phenomenon, not only in the history of Russia but in the history of all humanity, of all ages and all nations. The immortal Shakespeare by his artistic genius created in Hamlet an inimitable type of a man in whom reflection takes the ascendancy over his will and does not permit him to give substance or effect to his desires and intentions. In Peter not the genius of the artist, understanding the meaning of human nature, but nature herself created the opposite type--that of a man with an irresistible, indefatigable will in whom every thought was at once transformed into action. “I will it, because I count it good, and what I will must infallibly be”--such was the device of the whole life and work of this man.

He was distinguished by an aptitude and enterprise unattainable for ordinary mortals. Not having received any regular education, he wished to know everything and was obliged to study a great deal; however, the Russian czar was gifted with such a wealth of capacities that even with his short preparation he astounded persons who had spent their lives over what Peter only studied by the way. All that he learned he endeavoured to apply in Russia in order to transform her into a mighty European state. This was the thought that he cherished sincerely and wholly during the continuation of his entire life. Peter lived at a time when it was impossible for Russia to remain in the same beaten track, but must necessarily enter upon the path of renovation. Being gifted with mental clearsightedness, he recognised this necessity of his fatherland and set about the task with all the force of his gigantic will.

Peter’s autocracy, inherited from his forefathers, helped him more than anything. He created the army and the fleet, although for this was required an innumerable multitude of human sacrifices and the fruits of many years of national labour. All was offered by the people for this object, although the people itself did not clearly understand it and therefore did not desire it; but everything was given because the czar wished it. Incredible taxes were imposed, hundreds of thousands of the healthy young generation were sent to the war or to hard and painful labour never to return again. The people were ruined and impoverished in order that Russia might gain the sea, that she might extend her frontiers and organise an army capable of being measured against its neighbours. The Russians had grown attached to their ancient manners and customs, they hated everything foreign; immersed in outward forms of piety, they showed an aversion to the sciences. The autocratic czar compelled them to adopt foreign dress, to study foreign sciences, to disdain the customs of their forefathers, and to forswear their most sacred traditions. And the Russians mastered themselves; they were obedient because it was the wish of their autocratic sovereign.

During the whole of his reign Peter struggled against the prejudices and evil nature of his subjects and dependants; he prosecuted embezzlers of the public funds, takers of bribes, imposters, and lamented that things were not done in Russia as he could have wished. His partisans sought and even now seek to find in all this the cause of the obdurate vices and defects of the ancient Russian. But looking into the matter dispassionately, it follows that much must be ascribed to the character of Peter’s action. It is impossible to make a man happy against his own will or to force his nature. History shows us that, in a despotically ruled society, the vices that chiefly hinder the fulfilment of the most laudable and salutary preconceived designs of the power are most frequently and saliently manifested. What were the measures that Peter employed for bringing his great reforms to fulfilment? The tortures of the Preobrajenski Edict and the secret chancery, sentences of a painful death, prisons, the galleys, the knout, the tearing of the nostrils, espionage, the encouragement by rewards of informers. It is comprehensible that by such means Peter could inoculate neither civil courage, nor the feeling of duty, nor that love for one’s neighbour which is above all material or intellectual forces and more powerful than knowledge itself; in a word, although he established a multitude of institutions and created a new political organisation for Russia, yet Peter was not able to create a living, new Russia.

Possessed by the abstract idea of the state and sacrificing to this idea the temporary prosperity of the people, Peter did not act sincerely by the people. For him they only existed as the ciphers in a total--as the material good for the construction of the edifice of the state. He valued the Russian people as far as they were necessary to him in creating soldiers, masons, excavators, sailors; or, by their laboriously earned kopeck, in furnishing him with means for the maintenance of the state mechanism. Peter himself by his personality might serve as a model for the people he ruled over and transformed only in his boundless, untiring love of work; but in nowise by the moral qualities of his character. He did not even endeavour to restrain his passions, which not unfrequently led him to furious outbursts and bloody actions, although he severely punished like actions in those he ruled over. Peter allowed drunkenness and double dealing in himself, yet he prosecuted these same vices in his subjects. Many shocking actions that he committed have been justified by the sophisms of political necessity. To what an extent his ferocity and bloodthirstiness were carried is shown by the fact that he was not afraid to lower his royal dignity by taking upon himself the office of hangman during the time of the savage execution of the strelitz. Throughout his reign a bloody vapour arose from those who were tortured and put to death in accordance with the Preobrajenski Edict and contaminated the air of Russia, but it evidently did not trouble the slumbers of her sovereign.

Peter himself justified his cruel punishments by the requirements of justice, but facts prove that he was not equally inflexible in his justice to all and did not set an example to others in the indulgence he showed to his favourite, Menshikov, at whose hands such iniquities were committed as would have cost others their lives. His own outward political actions were not distinguished by irreproachable integrity and rectitude; the Northern War can never be justified from the point of view of justice. It is also impossible to call honourable the expedient Peter made use of with the English king George when, in spite of the clearest evidence, he assured him of his devotion and non-participation in the pretender’s designs. How far Peter respected the rights of neighbouring foreign nations when he had no reason to fear them is shown by his savage behaviour to the uniat monks of Polosk--an action for which he himself would have probably punished by death any one of his subjects who had thus dared to take the law into his own hands in a foreign land.

All the dark sides of Peter’s character may of course be easily excused by the features of the age in which he lived; it may justly be pointed out to us that for the greater part such traits are also to be found in the characters of his contemporaries. It remains indubitable that Peter surpassed the sovereigns contemporary with him by the vastness of his intellect and by his untiring love of work; but in moral respects he was not better than many of them; and it was for this reason that the society which he wished to re-create did not rise superior to those societies which were governed by Peter’s contemporaries. Until Peter’s reign Russia was plunged in ignorance; and, boasting of her bigoted, ceremonial piety, glorified herself with the name of the New Israel, whilst in reality she was by no means a “new Israel.” By his despotic measures Peter created out of her a monarchy that was a terror to foreigners by her army and fleet; he communicated to the upper class of her people the outward marks of European civilisation; yet Russia after Peter did not in reality become the “new Israel” that she had desired to be before his time.

All Peter’s pupils, the men of new Russia who outlived him, were entangled in their own snares; following their own egotistical aims, they perished on the scaffold or in exile, and the Russian public man adopted in his conscience the rule that he might do anything he found profitable, although it might be immoral, justifying himself by the fact that other nations did the same. Yet, in spite of all this, as a historical royal worker Peter has preserved for us in his personality such an exalted moral trait that it involuntarily draws our heart to him; this trait is his devotion to the ideal to which he wholly consecrated his soul during all his lifetime. He loved Russia, loved the Russian people, loved it in the sense of the mass of Russian men who were his contemporaries and subjects in the sense of that ideal to which he desired to bring his people; and this love constitutes in him that great quality which incites us, beyond our own will, to love his personality, setting aside both his bloody tribunal and all his demoralising despotism reflecting a baneful influence even on posterity. Because of Peter’s love for the ideal of the Russian people, the Russians will love Peter until he himself loses the national ideal, and for the sake of this love they will forgive him all that a heavy burden has laid upon his memory.[d]

HAXTAUSEN’S ESTIMATE OF PETER’S INFLUENCE

From the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries a national spirit dominated entirely. Moreover, Russian sovereigns had, for many years, perceived that the people were behind other nations who had sprung into being as late as themselves or who were inferior either in origin or in physical or intellectual faculties. To remedy this tardy growth they conceived it necessary to put themselves into direct contact with the west in order to borrow its light and imitate its progress. The best way of accomplishing this was, they thought, to get as many foreigners as possible into the country to train the young; to give the state new institutions, and remodel the old on western principles. Ivan Vasilievitch had already drawn a crowd of foreigners, and particularly Germans; had even tried to put his army on a European footing. The successors of the Romanov branch followed zealously in this path, but no prince felt more strongly than Peter I the necessity of letting Russia take a foremost place in Europe. His quick impetuous nature detested slow and incomplete measures. To him, to sow without reaping, or prune without tasting the fruits, was labour provoking all his repugnance.

The impetus he gave Russia is that in which she still continues. Everywhere in the public and social life of this people is to be noticed the impulse he gave. It is an accomplished fact that no human power can annul; so all inquiry to find out if this impetus was necessary and favourable to Russia would be inopportune and sterile. There is, however, no doubt that in Peter’s haste in his work of reform he did not sufficiently consider national things both great and good; that he introduced a crowd of foreign innovations, some mediocre, some positively bad, without pausing to think whether they were suitable to the climate, the established order of things, or if they would fit in harmoniously with Russian nationality.[j]

FOOTNOTES

[39] A verst is 3500 English feet and a sazhen 7 feet.

[40] The ancient Borysthenes.

[41] [Porte is the name given to the chief office of the Ottoman government, so called from the gate of the palace at which justice was administered. The name is applied also to the Ottoman court--the government of the Turkish Empire.]

[42] Bruce, who was in the battle of the Pruth, asserts his belief that this negotiation was conducted without Peter’s knowledge; and the _Journal de Pierre le Grand_ alludes to the transmission of the letter, but is silent as to the share Catherine took in the affair. There is no doubt, however, that the details of her interference are correct, and Peter afterwards appears to have confirmed them by his declaration at the coronation of the empress in 1723, that she “had been of great assistance to the empire in all times of danger, but particularly at the battle of the Pruth.”

[43] Ulrica had ceded the crown to her husband.

[44] The men who have no _tchin_, the _tchornii narod_, that is, the black people, or blackguards.

[45] A poud contains forty Russian pounds, or about thirty-six pounds avoirdupois.

[46] [That is, to St. Petersburg instead of to Archangel.]

[47] Peter’s own words were as follows: “Those who do not respect them that have given them life are most ungrateful creatures, and ingratitude is the most abominable of all vices.”--GOLIKOV.[m]

[48] [The separate female apartments, corresponding to the Attic γὔναικών.]